At public speaking engagements, Ballou stresses that her extensive medical background gives her special insight into the prescription drug “epidemic.”

But in an interview with the Herald-Tribune this week, Ballou acknowledged that her doctorate is from a diploma mill.

Officials at Creighton University, where Ballou said she earned her nursing degree, and UCLA, where she claims to have received an MBA, have no record of her receiving any academic credentials.

Ballou does have a certificate from the University of Oxford framed on her office wall. But it was awarded to her for attending a few lectures while on a cruise aboard the Queen Mary 2. It is not the business degree that she advertises to potential donors.

Ballou also acknowledged that in 2000, the Securities and Exchange Commission accused her of playing a major role in a multistate Ponzi scheme by a Longwood company, which bilked investors out of millions of dollars and used the money to fund “extravagant lifestyles.”

New nonprofit

Ballou founded PARK in June 2011, about 10 weeks after her daughter died. Ballou said that oxycodone played a role in the death.

PARK has a small office suite in the 2800 block of Fruitville Road.

The organization is not doing well financially, Ballou said, estimating that she has received less than $5,000 in donations, although a donor tote board indicates at least one $10,000 donation.

PARK is a relatively new nonprofit, and its IRS documents, which Ballou supplied as required by law, don't indicate the amount of donations received.

“I have funded this whole thing out of my checking account,” she said.

PARK's staff consists of Ballou, a secretary and an office manager.

Ballou's office is festooned with awards, certificates and photos of her with President Gerald Ford, singer Charo, actor Robert Wagner and other celebrities.

Ballou said PARK's three-pronged mission is to “make people aware of what we do at PARK,” and to “educate the general public.” It also seeks accountability from pharmaceutical companies and the medical field, she said.

In an interview with the Herald-Tribune, Ballou struggled to explain how her nonprofit achieves these goals. Apart from her speaking engagements, the only program Ballou could cite was a “chapter program” school curriculum that she said was introduced nationally in December.

“It's a complete turn-key program,” she said, adding that it will allow schools to “duplicate what PARK has already done.”

The curriculum, she said, is being used by the North Platte School District — in her Nebraska hometown.

But a school district official said that is not the case. The official, who asked not to be named in this story because she was not authorized to speak on behalf of the district, said Ballou was allowed to present a workshop to several faculty members at the district's central office. The official described the presentation as “very odd.”

“The curriculum director was very disappointed,” the official said. “The teachers were very brutal. None of her curriculum is in use here.”

The statistics that Ballou cites in her curriculum are old, mostly from 2006, and draw on sources that include Seventeen magazine.

Ballou is the author of three self-published, self-help books. She has recorded two music CDs and developed a one-woman cabaret show.

She has produced two documentaries about the dangers posed by prescription drug abuse.

“Oxycodone, Prescription for Death” premieres Saturday at 6 p.m., at the University of South Florida Selby Auditorium. Tickets are $50 per person.

Ballou says she is a certified pilot, and has business cards indicating she is also an executive aircraft sales consultant.

In a 2009 interview with her hometown paper, the North Platte Bulletin, Ballou described her nursing career in Los Angeles during the 1960s. She said she rotated through intensive care, surgery, a delivery room, a terminal cancer center and a psychiatric facility where she worked as a supervisor.

But on Wednesday, Ballou confirmed she has never held a nursing license.

“I worked as a CNA,” or certified nursing assistant, she said. “At the time, I was married and didn't need to work much.”

She also told the Nebraska newspaper that she has worked on pit crews for racers Mario Andretti and Richard Petty, adding, “That was a rare achievement for a woman.”

SEC complaint

The Securities and Exchange Commission announced on May 31, 2001, that it had filed a civil complaint against Ballou and two men for what the federal agency described as raising “approximately $2.7 million from the public as part of a $17.7 million Ponzi scheme conducted by Sebastian International Enterprises, Inc.”

Simultaneously with the civil suit by the SEC, Ballou and the two other men — Ronald Wackler of Troy, Ohio, and Bruce Harlan of Sharon, Conn. — agreed to settle the charges without admitting or denying the allegations in the complaint.

The SEC accused Ballou and Wackler of personally bilking more than $1.5 million from the public by misrepresenting the risk and safety of SIE's securities and the firm's ability to pay interest and principal on the notes.

Ballou received $154,994 in commissions, court documents show. Ballou's repayment was waived because of her “demonstrated financial inability to pay.”

SEC documents say SIE's owners “used most of the money to pay for their extravagant lifestyle.”

On Wednesday, Ballou said she was the one who alerted federal officials about SIE's Ponzi scheme.

“I was the one that found out about it,” Ballou said.

“I called the FBI. I gave them all my records. At no time was I ever responsible. I got my hand slapped for two years. I was the only one who tried to do what was right.”

The complaint says nothing about Ballou being a whistle-blower. She was treated like any other defendant.

Citizen of the Year

Neither Sheriff Knight nor State Attorney Brodsky returned calls or emails seeking comment for this story.

Curtis Lavarello, executive director of the Sarasota Coalition on Substance Abuse and a former police officer, said that if his organization is able to subtantiate the allegations against Ballou, he will rescind the “Citizen of the Year” award his group gave Ballou.

Lavarello said he is more disappointed than angry.

“I would have hoped, in the many discussions I had with her, knowing the scope of the recognition we were presenting, that she owed it to us to be upfront with us,” Lavarello said.

“We're not an investigative agency. It's so disappointing when something like this happens. I guess it will behoove us to start running background checks.”

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